Your Right to Know

Republican Jim Petro, Ohio’s former attorney general and state auditor, is expected to endorse a
2014 Ohio ballot measure that would permit same-sex marriages in the state.

Petro, who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2006, is scheduled to appear at a Columbus news
conference Monday with officials of FreedomOhio, the group that wants to overturn Ohio’s ban on
same-sex marriage.

Ian James, co-founder of FreedomOhio, said yesterday that his group has decided to put the
ballot question to Ohio voters on the general election ballot next year. FreedomOhio had considered
waiting until the 2016 presidential election, but the organization’s executive committee voted this
month to place it on next year’s ballot.

Freedom Ohio must submit 385,245 valid signatures of registered Ohio voters on petitions by July
3, 2014, to qualify for next year’s general election ballot. The signatures must come from at least
44 counties.

“We’ll definitely have enough signatures to qualify from at least 50 counties,” James said.

If passed, Freedom Ohio’s initiative effectively would cancel the 2004 constitutional amendment
passed by Ohio voters to prohibit gay marriage in the state.

In an interview with
The Dispatch this year, Petro said he had rethought his opposition to gay marriage after
his daughter, Corbin, legally married Jessica Clare Gelman last year in Massachusetts. Corbin is
chief operating officer of the Massachusetts Department of Medicaid in Boston and Jessica is vice
president of the Kraft Sports Group, which owns the New England Patriots.

Petro’s expected endorsement of an initiative to permit same-sex marriage in the state would
come on the heels of another high-profile Ohio Republican reversing his opposition to gay marriage.
In March, U.S. Sen. Rob Portman changed his position after learning that his son, Will, a junior at
Yale University, is gay.